Last Spring, I took my spey rod to fish for shad on the mid Columbia for a little practice with the casts and sink tips. But I ran into a problem that I haven't seen covered by any book or video. On some of this bank, I was up on a cliff about 6 feet off the water, so it was a weird place for a spey. I could lift the fly line well from up there, but it was tricky to angle a spey out into the river without bashing the fly into the cliff face below me. Other places along this bank I was closer to the water but it was too deep to wade into, leaving little space for any water anchor. I could perry poke a bit along this bank, but had to be carefull not to direct the loop into low lying brush along the bank. I cast overhead with the two hander for a while, but I was glad to revert to my single handed rod. With a full sinking shooting head and amnesia running line, I could cast as far with less effort, shoot the backcast over low lying brush, get the fly deeper, and strip the line in and shoot it out easier.